According to Giuseppe Cecchi, the Watergate name was “obvious.” Everyone was well aware of the Water Gate Inn and the Watergate concert barge, he said, and the development was “right by the water.” Cecchi said he and Salgo, along with Royce Ward, recommended the name to SGI headquarters. “Everything had to be approved by Rome,” Cecchi later recalled.
Marjory Hendricks, the owner of the Water Gate Inn, hoped the planned National Cultural Center would attract thousands more visitors—and potential diners—to Foggy Bottom. She asked Washington architect Donald H. Drayer to design an “Apartment Hotel” to replace her existing restaurant. Between October 1959 and January 1960, he completed detailed drawings for a modern seven-story building with ninety apartments, mostly studios, with a restaurant, cocktail lounge and gift shop on the ground floor. Across the top of the structure, in capital letters, was the proposed building’s new name: WATERGATE.
According to Nicolas Salgo, he regularly ate lunch at the Water Gate Inn and was looking for someone to operate a restaurant in the new hotel planned for Island Vista’s new development. He persuaded Marjory to bring her restaurant into the hotel, along with the name Watergate.
Several months later, Salgo was eating lunch at the Water Gate Inn when she came by his table with bad news.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I have to welch on our deal.”
“How can you do that?” he asked.
The National Cultural Center wanted the land, and her lawyers had advised that if she closed down, she would receive “millions more” for it than if she moved her restaurant to a new location. Salgo said he would let her out of her contract, but only if she gave up all rights to the name Watergate.
“That’s how the Watergate name came over to us,” Salgo later recalled.
Marjory Hendricks would never receive “millions more” for her property. The Kennedy Center trustees eventually offered her only $450,000. She took them to court and settled for a payment of just $650,000.
BILL FINLEY, THE STAFF DIRECTOR OF THE National Capital Planning Commission, circulated a glowing report to the commission on the “Proposed Watergate Towne Development,” which concluded the project was “very sound” and predicted “the community will gain a great deal from the development as designed.” The developers could, under existing zoning and without closing any streets, build “the typical cross-shaped apartment buildings found in Northern Virginia and parts of the District,” which would result in “buildings tightly packed and without distinction.” Instead, the Watergate architects had designed structures “with graceful curves and unusual elegance.” To execute this design, the developer was asking for more flexibility under Article 75 of the District’s zoning code, which directed the planning commission to make recommendations regarding the height, mass, parking and overall treatment of the project and allowed the District Zoning Commission to waive various zoning rules. The net effect of Article 75 was to enable “more creative use of land and more successful large scale developments.”
At the September 1961 meeting of the planning commission, Milton Fischer said the Watergate was designed to “attract people to Washington” and “assist in reversing the suburban trend.” The developers had set out to create not only an “income-producing” project but one that also “had beauty, that had a relationship to the city that would add to the character of the entire environment.” He presented a design for the site, including three apartment buildings, an office and a hotel. The tallest of the buildings would reach 155 feet into the sky, measured from their foundations. Two levels of penthouses would sit atop each of the fourteen-story residential buildings. Two-story “Pompeiian villas” would be placed on the grounds between the buildings.
Finley explained to the commissioners that the Watergate developers were not requesting any action at this time, but only wanted to know if they were “on the right track.”
“I think the apparent consensus is favorable,” replied Dean Woodruff, the chairman.
Mrs. Rowe had no questions.
THE COMMISSION OF FINE ARTS, KNOWN BY ITS INITIALS, CFA, was established by Congress in 1910, with control at first only over the appearance of public buildings. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson expanded this authority to include all major buildings in the District of Columbia, both public and private, with the exception of the U.S. Capitol grounds. While the CFA could not grant construction permits, it could veto any building on purely aesthetic grounds.
The chairman of the CFA, David E. Finley (no relation to Bill Finley, the planning commission staff director) was the only son of a Democratic congressman from South Carolina. Finley served in World War I and practiced law in Washington until 1921, when he joined the legal staff of the treasury department, headed by Secretary Andrew W. Mellon. Among other duties, Finley provided Mellon with legal assistance as he assembled his spectacular art collection, and in 1927, when Mellon started the National Gallery of Art, Finley became Mellon’s special assistant. Following Mellon’s death in 1937, Finley supervised the completion of the gallery and served as its first director. In 1943, President Roosevelt appointed Finley to the CFA. At the end of World War II, as vice chairman of the Roberts Commission, Finley played a key role, with the famous “Monuments Men,” in saving the artistic treasures of Europe. When Jacqueline Kennedy undertook the renovation and restoration of the White House, she turned to Finley for guidance. There was no heavier hitter in Washington arts and culture than David Finley.
The day before Milton Fischer was scheduled to brief the CFA on the Watergate for the first time, commissioners met privately to examine Moretti’s sketches and a scale model of the complex. They were uneasy about the height of the buildings and “the use of such unconventional architecture in an area of such importance,” but agreed to withhold comments until they met with the architect and the development team.
The next day, in public session, the commissioners told Fischer they did not have enough information to reach any conclusions about the design, but praised the spacing of the buildings, which they said created “an impression of openness.” They noted, however, that nearly all of the open areas were taken up by the proposed “Pompeiian villas.” They had no objection to the buildings being as tall as 130 feet, but recommended that more of the land should be set aside as open space between buildings. On October 2, Finley wrote to the District of Columbia’s chief of permits, Julian Greene, informing him the CFA would approve closing streets “in order to encourage the builders to plan these squares of land in a unified manner, and to avoid producing a series of separate and unrelated designs.” Finley added the commissioners “would also not oppose a limited deviation from the planning and zoning standards that are followed in other areas of the city, if relaxing these standards would afford the designers the opportunity to achieve a character more consistent with the open park-like nature of this site.” Finley’s letter did not raise concerns about the height of the complex, but recommended the Watergate developers include more open space in their plan. The final judgment of the CFA, however, would have to wait “until such a time as a detailed study of the land usage, density of occupancy, and other planning matters have been fully explored.”
Back in Rome, Samaritani read Finley’s letter carefully. Despite its calls for more open space, Samaritani was encouraged. The CFA appeared open-minded about the Watergate. He wrote “Molto bene!”—“Very good!”—in red ink on his copy.
ON NOVEMBER 9, 1961, THE NATIONAL CAPITAL PLANNING COMMISSION met to consider the Watergate. The commission was under new management: Libby Rowe was now chairman.
David Finley attended the meeting and spoke first. Over the past month, he had soured on the Watergate. He warned that the buildings would overpower both the Lincoln Memorial and the planned National Cultural Center. He suggested the entire parcel be set aside as a public park.
District Engineer Commissioner Frederick J. Clarke, a retired general and a member of the District Zoning Commission, said the developer had “a p
erfect right” to “build a series of apartment houses in this area.” He estimated the unimproved land was now worth approximately $7 million. “Unless someone can write a check for the land,” he said, “I think we have to let it go.” A subcommittee of four commissioners, including Rowe and Louchheim, the two Kennedy appointees, was directed to delve further into the details of Watergate Towne and report back to the full planning commission the next month.
When the National Capital Planning Commission released its December meeting agenda, however, there was no mention of the Watergate. Cecchi sent an urgent telegram to Rome:
PLANNING COMMISSION IS TRYING TO PUT OFF DECISION UNTIL JANUARY STOP
FIGHTING TO GET THE COMMISSION TO LOOK AT OUR PROJECT ON THE 7TH SALGO WILL BE THERE STOP
Bill Finley called Cecchi and told him it would be “impossible” to place the Watergate on the December 7 agenda. Rowe, Finley confided, was working with an unnamed aide in the Kennedy White House, who was abroad at the time, to get the federal government to purchase the land and turn it into a public park. “Mrs. Rowe,” Finley said, “does not want to make any decision or take any action before she consults with that person.” He advised Cecchi to “put up a strong fight, at the same time acting in a respectful manner, at least for the moment.”
A clerk in the District’s zoning department told Royce Ward a park was “impractical” and offered to “go to the newspapers with a strong blast against the delaying tactics.” Another member of the Watergate team urged Cecchi to send a telegram to each member of the planning commission “informing them of our frustration.” Finley recommended patience. “Mrs. Rowe’s visionary dream cannot come to fruition,” he told Cecchi, and the Watergate developers “should not do anything that might make her feel antagonistic.” Finley suggested instead that Cecchi and his colleagues consider preparation of a “conventional” design for the site, allowed under existing zoning, to use as leverage in future negotiations—“but without giving the impression it’s some kind of shakedown.”
Cecchi called Rowe at her home and offered to set up a meeting with Salgo on December 7. She put him off, saying she had been ill and could not meet that day, but agreed to meet another time, perhaps on Salgo’s next trip to Washington.
Samaritani, who was closely monitoring events in Washington, weighed in: “I believe now is not the time to dramatize what has happened by undertaking a publicity campaign that might, in the end, place us at a disadvantage,” he wrote Cecchi. It would be “a mistake,” he added, to alienate anyone whose support would be useful, especially Mrs. Rowe, considering “her political point of view, and her influential contacts at the White House.”
In an interview with the Washington Post, Rowe went public with her concerns. She said many of her fellow commissioners had a “substantial feeling” the Watergate site should be “reserved for public purposes.” The Washington Star blasted her for “fuzzy thinking on several counts” and scoffed at any suggestion Congress would appropriate funds to condemn the land, seize it and compensate the developers. The Lincoln Memorial, the Star editorialized, was a half mile away and in no danger of being “overshadowed” by the Watergate.
OVER THE HOLIDAYS, A STORY APPEARED IN THE Washington Post with the headline: FOGGY BOTTOM PROJECT SPONSORS SAID TO HAVE VATICAN FINANCIAL TIES. According to the Post’s Rome bureau, “Loopholes in Italian law make it impossible to determine who controls the world-wide real estate organization that is sponsoring a proposed 50-million-dollar apartment project in Washington’s Foggy Bottom. But the general consensus here is that the largest single shareholder in the Società Generale Immobiliare is the Vatican, through its several financial departments and agencies.” As evidence, the Post noted four of twelve members of SGI’s board “are known to be very close to the Vatican,” including Count Enrico Pietro Galeazzi, vice president of the firm and head of the Vatican’s technical and economic department; Prince Marcantonio Pacelli, a nephew of the late Pope Pius XII; Marquis Giovanni Battista Sacchetti, holder of a “high honorary office in the Vatican”; and Luigi Mennini, “an official of the Institute for Religious Works, which is one of the main arms of the Vatican’s financial administration.”
The story was read closely by Glenn Archer, executive director of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, known by its initials, POAU. With 100,000 members and supporters nationwide, POAU was familiar to the Kennedy team. During the 1960 presidential campaign, POAU published at least three pamphlets raising questions about Senator Kennedy’s Catholic faith. “The Church of the Catholic candidate asserts absolute control over its members in regard to what it defines as ‘moral and spiritual’ issues,” Archer warned in one broadside. “These are frequently civil issues as well.” If elected, POAU warned, Kennedy “would be subject to considerable clerical pressure.”
The January 1962 issue of Church and State, POAU’s monthly newsletter, carried an article with the headline: WORLD’S RICHEST CHURCH SEEKS GOVERNMENT SUBSIDY. “Watergate Towne, a project of the largest real estate company in Italy—a company owned by the Vatican—is working its way through the federal and local zoning agencies.”
CECCHI MET WITH BILL FINLEY PRIVATELY AFTER THE FIRST of the year and gave him a book about Italian parks and cities. Finley assured Cecchi that Rowe’s idea for a park on the Watergate site was going nowhere, although she “is still holding onto every hope.” He told Cecchi not to “surrender” to his chairman’s demands and predicted the Watergate would end up with the support of “a majority” of the planning commission votes. He advised Cecchi to request approval for a height of 180 feet “and allow them to do the cutting.” The Watergate, Finley assured him, “is good for Washington.” Finley pushed the commission’s consideration of the Watergate off another month, until February, to give Cecchi and his colleagues more time to prepare.
When the National Capital Planning Commission met on February 1, 1962, Morton Hoppenfeld, a staff architect, declared “the proposed design is of high architectural quality.” Although the relationship between the Watergate and the proposed National Cultural Center was “difficult to evaluate” because the center’s plans were in flux, Luigi Moretti’s “qualifications and previous work” should give the commission “every indication of a singular goal of good design quality.”
Dean Woodruff, the commission’s vice chairman, warned that failing to support the Watergate proposal might drive the developers away, as had happened with the team behind Potomac Plaza Center just a few years earlier. “It is costing these people a lot of money to stand still,” he said. “Their taxes are coming along day by day.” If these developers walked away, he said, more than twenty buildings might sprout on the existing streets. The choice was between the Watergate’s “very imaginative treatment” and a more conventional plan, which would “look exactly like so many lumps of sugar stacked neatly along the streets.”
“As Chairman of this Commission,” Rowe said, “I am always looking for public interest. It is a very ephemeral thing. . . . In this case I think I have found it. I may be wrong, but I am persuaded . . . that approval would not, in the way I understand it, be in the public interest.”
Commissioner C. H. Bronn moved the planning commission approve “in principle . . . the land use and design concepts” of the Watergate Towne application, with a “maximum height of 130 feet,” and direct the National Park Service to enter into negotiations with Island Vista, regarding the exchange of lands within and adjacent to the site. Rowe called the roll. The motion passed by a vote of seven to three, with Rowe, Louchheim, and Conrad L. Wirth, the National Park Service director, voting no.
Bruno Foa, an Italian economist based in New York, sat in on the planning commission hearing as an observer for SGI and sent Samaritani a report. The “marginalization of Mrs. Rowe, because of her opposition to the project,” he wrote, was “conspicuous.” He specifically praised Finley, the planning commission’s staff director, whose “cooperation” enabled the meeting to
be moved from January to February, which “allowed us to gain at least one more month.” The vote was “a turning point,” Foa wrote, which “gives us a psychological edge” in the battles ahead. He predicted, however, that Rowe and the Commission of Fine Arts “will continue to set up barriers along the way.”
Foa sent a second letter, this one to Antonio Cecchi. The planning commission vote was “a truly decisive step toward the realization of the project,” Foa wrote. He praised Nicolas Salgo, who “conducted everything with great skill and diligence.” Foa predicted the “battle with all of the bureaucrats is going to be played out over several months” and “might be won within the next two months.” Anticipating a fatherly interest, he wrote that Giuseppe “like always, has been working around the clock.”
As Foa had predicted, David Finley and the CFA took aim at the Watergate at its March 20 meeting. Commissioners approved a resolution with a detailed and wide-ranging case against the development, objecting to the proposed height; the “sweeping, curvilinear forms”; the “continuous arrangement of building masses,” which would, “for all intents and purposes, shut off the important views of the Potomac River and Roosevelt Island”; and the “overpowering mass of the total composition.” The CFA resolution mocked the Watergate’s vision of itself as a “Garden City within a City,” as set forth in its brochure. “The Commission adheres to the principle that large-scale developments should be subordinate to the city as a whole, especially in instances where the site is of such importance and in close proximity to important monumental areas.”
The battle over the Watergate now shifted to a new venue, the District of Columbia Zoning Commission, composed of five members: District of Columbia Engineer Commissioner General F. J. Clarke and District Commissioners Walter N. Tobriner and John B. Duncan, each appointed by Congress; the head of the National Park Service, Conrad L. Wirth; and the Architect of the Capitol, J. George Stewart. Their first hearing on the Watergate, at 10:00 A.M. on Friday, April 13, began favorably for the developers when the zoning commission secretary read into the record an endorsement by the three-member Zoning Advisory Council, which found the development to be “in the public interest.” Attorney William R. Lichtenberg, representing Island Vista, described the Watergate as “a well-planned development” that was both attractive and efficient. “The architectural design,” he said, “is both creative and imaginative. A prime consideration in the design was that it would complement the unique area of the property involved and that, when completed, would add beauty to the city and the area, as well as enhance the values of surrounding areas.” After Lichtenberg returned to his seat, Chairman Clarke asked if any other supporters of the project were in the room. James C. Wilkes, Jr., a land-use attorney, introduced himself and submitted a letter of support for the record, signed by “Mrs. Marjory Hendricks, the owner of the Water Gate Inn, who favors the proposed project.”
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